Are You the One?

As I type this sentence, it's just past one o clock in the morning on a Saturday. I had a somewhat uneventful evening. I watched a movie and then went to a bar. I was home by 12:30. I showed incredible restraint at said bar, turning down multiple rounds of shots and a particularly enticing offer in the bathroom. But I just joined a gym and I have spin class in the morning.

"New year, new me," I smugly replied when my friends protested.

And then on the way home I listened to a political podcast and smiled ear to ear about how I could tell people in the morning that I stayed in on Friday night.

In all actuality my Friday night was probably substantially more eventful than most in their 30's, but I did not hit the required threshold for 'going out' which in my definition is 10 drinks or $75 spent. And it is precisely this line of thinking which I presume keeps me single.

Before I left, I looked around the bar at how people were interacting. There were girls smiling at boys willing them to like her. There were your garden variety savages throwing game on any two x chromosome with a pulse. There were the couples, some old, some new and then of course there were the groups of friends out celebrating something; a birthday, an engagement, another Friday night above dirt.

There is a theory out there of a 'soul mate.' Some people believe that there is a person out there for every single one of us. Others dismiss this as a hopelessly romantic ideal and argue a more pragmatic case, you end up with the person you're dating when you are ready to settle down. The other side of the fence sees this theory as depressing, settling for something that will lead to a bitter existence.

MTV has gamified this theory on a reality dating competition called 'Are You the One?' Basically they take a bunch of lower middle class trash from Staten Island and put them in a house in the Domincan Republic or something, but through some sort of Match.com fuckery, the producers have heteronormatively matched each male to a perfect female partner. Obviously this is hidden from the contestants, but if they can figure out all the perfect pairs everyone splits a million dollars.

The set up really doesn't matter, the show is about a bunch of strangers getting drunk and having sex with one another. If a male/female tandem finds out that they are not indeed a perfect match, they are encouraged to ditch that partner and find someone else to go hook with, a fascinating social experiment.

Concurrently with watching this show I read a book of a similar subject matter called 'The Rosie Project.' In the Australian novel, a genetics professor with Aspergers syndrome tries to develop a system to help him find the perfect mate. It's somewhat similar to the premise of Along Came Polly. Obviously his system fails miserably and he ends up with the last person he would expect, but the interesting portion of the book stems directly from his lack of filter. Due to his affliction he can't take social cues and often speaks his mind in very inappropriate situations.

This got me thinking...

We spend so much time self consciously analyzing every thing we do and say in this world. It's as if our teenage angst never left. The 'Bumble' games, the 'being coy, hard to get' it really is an extreme case of inefficiency.

So what if we just said what we felt?

I'll use a personal example.

There are women in my life that I am at least interested in exploring something beyond friendship. I say nothing because it's easy. It's awkward to share. It is much easier for me to drink a 6 pack of Lagunitas and throw things at the cat than to have real talks about human emotion. And maybe it's because I am a total coward or perhaps I'm worried about the rejection or even worse the fall out from a rejection. I create these lanes for myself, these specific relationships with specific people. If that relationship shifts for me, it throws my whole equilibrium out of whack.

But let's psychoanalyze this further and talk through the potential outcomes of sacking up and putting myself out there.

Let's say I know a girl named Brenda (I literally know no one named Brenda, I don't think anyone under the age of 70 has that name)

Brenda and I are friends, but I have always wondered if we could be something more, so I ask her one day if she would be curious in exploring a potential relationship. Go on a date or two and see what happens.

From here there are really two things that could happen.

1. She says yes. We go on a date.

2. She says no. We do not go on a date.

Seems fairly simple thus far, but this is where the possibilities spiral out.

1.1 She says yes, we go on a date, it's great we start dating.

1.2 She says yes, we go on a date, it's weird, abort!

2.1 She says no, we stay friends and laugh it off.

2.2 She says no and it's weird now.

OK so maybe there were four possibilities.

But no my friend, there are so, so many more.

1.1.1 She says yes, we go on a date, we start dating, we get married.

1.1.2 She says yes we start dating but then we have a catastrophic break-up down the road.

1.1.2.1 She says yes, we start dating but then we have a catastrophic break up down the road largely due to my fault, I lose all my friends.

etc, etc etc,

Obviously this decision tree goes on forever because in life there are infinite possibilities stringing from every decision we make. So while the MTV reality producer would tell me to just move to the next one, it's easy to see why many of us are so hesitant to pull the trigger.

I don't know if this is a personal thing or not, but every time I see someone on my Facebook wall that I dated, hooked up with or even had a secret crush on and I see they are engaged I immediately think 'is there a timeline where it would have been me?' And then the alpha male in me kicks in and I stalk the guy and try to determine if I'm cooler than him but then I shrug and resume living my life.

So we're back to a fundamental question. Do I share my feelings and accept the wreckage that comes along with it or do I solemnly brood about missing 100% of the shots that I didn't take.

It may sound crude to say I'm going to inform every woman in my life how I feel about them. "I've always wondered if there could be something between us," is a fairly loaded gun to give someone.

But I guess if you put your cards out there at least you'll know?

My immediate assumption is it would make a lot of people uncomfortable but may yield some good results. And if reading this makes your skin crawl as you look at your phone waiting for my number to pop up with a declaration of love, I assure you that you needn't worry. I would never. But In terms of finding your soul mate, it might not be the worst strategy to throw a ton of shit at the wall and see what sticks.

I'm not really into hitting on girls at bars unless I am hammered on a dance floor, thus conventional wisdom holds that I will probably end up with a friend of a friend. I will likely end up married to the person I am dating when about 72% of my friends are married...or I'll end up living with Tulip the cat forever, but just know that I had some things that I kept bottled up inside of me. Maybe I could have told the truth on an MTV dating show. Perhaps I could have been more honest had I been somewhere on the autism spectrum.

But as it turns out, I was just as scared as the angsty protagonist in the first act of a coming of age story that never had the balls to ask the cute girl out.

Well not yet at least. Maybe some day. I suppose at 30, I'm entering the second act of my life and that's usually when the protagonist gets his shit together.